


Innocence

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Not an Eöl sympathetic story, implied abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aredhel watches her son, looking for signs of his father in him, dreading what she may see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocence

In the shadows of Nan Elmoth, Aredhel watched her son play. He was making himself a clumsily-tied-together doll from the rushes that grew by the muddy banks of the forest stream, and his small face was screwed up in concentration, his lip pushed out with utmost seriousness.

Maeglin took no notice of her as she watched him in the mud on the bank; perhaps, she thought, he had not realised she was there, absorbed as he was. 

It was the middle of the day, but the forest floor was suffused by a sort of dim green twilight, with only pinpricks of sunlight coming through the canopy high above.

 _How strange_ , Aredhel thought with a stab of pain,  _my son has never seen the sun, not truly._  She herself had been spoiled for light, she realised now, when she was a child; each day they had bathed in the golden glow of Laurelin and even the nights shimmered silver, resplendent.  _How one notices things when they are absent._

She looked back to Maeglin, the corner of her mouth lifting in a slight smile as she watched him. His small fingers pulled a reed into a knot, but as he was about to pull it tight a fall of dark hair fell over his pale face, and, shaking his head to clear his vision, he let the knot slip open. 

With a frown, Maeglin picked up the doll once more, found a new reed, and started to make the knot again. There was a look of methodical determination on his face, and something else too, something she could not quite name. 

Was it a flash of anger in his dark eyes? Those eyes that were so like Eöl’s, she thought with a slight shudder.  _No._  She pushed the thought aside determinedly, thinking of Eöl and his hands on her, hurting her, his stinging words mixed poisonously with his kind ones, her own entrapment…  _no._   _My son need not turn out like him. He must not turn out like him. I will see to it that he does not. Lómion is young and innocent yet and he needs me. He is a good boy._

The child had tried again - for the fourth or fifth time she thought - but dropped the doll once more, the reed pulling too tight and breaking. The rest slipped from his hands, into the mud at his feet. With a sudden, angry shout of frustration, Maeglin picked up the doll and threw it angrily into the stream, where it promptly vanished into the black water with a muted splash. Then he turned and, balling his hands into fists, started to run back to the house. 

Aredhel only just managed to catch her son before he barrelled into her legs, sobbing. She held his arms, gently but firmly, to keep his flying fists away from her, before he saw who it was and went limp, clinging to her skirts. 

She knelt hastily down to his level, gathering her son into her arms, heedless of the mud covering him. “Oh Lómion.” She stroked his hair. “Oh little one, would you like to tell me what’s wrong?”

He sniffed noisily. “I… couldn’t do it” he choked out at last, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I was trying to make a little boy or girl, a friend, out of the reeds, but I couldn’t…” he coughed. “I couldn’t.”

 _He tried to make a friend, he had said. And when that didn’t work, he threw his friend into the stream._  Aredhel looked at her son, momentarily uncomfortable at the resemblance to his father she saw in his face, but she softened almost at once at the sight of his wide, beseeching eyes, welling up with tears. 

Gently, she smoothed back the wild tangle of hair that had fallen across his muddy face. “Oh Lómion. Let’s get you back and cleaned up. If you like, I’ll teach you how to make a reed doll, properly. You have to use the drier reeds. These are still too green and supple, and they are harder to knot.” She wiped away his tears, searching his small face. “So you see? You didn’t really fail, after all.”

He frowned up at her. “Really?”

"Really." She took his hands in hers. "Come, let’s get you back."

"I don’t want father to know. You won’t tell, will you?"

 _Already his instinct is to hide from Eöl._  Her heart felt as though it were being torn asunder. “Not if you don’t want me to, sweet one.”


End file.
